Undertaking Irene: Jane Delaney Mysteries, #1

By Pamela Burford

"Look out, Janet Evanovich: Jane Delaney is a worthy rival of Stephanie Plum. Bright, smart, and incredibly funny, Undertaking Irene is a delightful laugh-out-loud roller-coaster ride." — Lorna Barrett, New York Times best-selling author of Book Clubbed

 

"Witty characters, humorous story line and a plot so fun you won't want to stop reading this book! . . . It's laugh out loud funny and will make people wonder what you are reading!" — Shelley's Book Case

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Jane Delaney does things her paying customers can't do, don't want to do, don't want to be seen doing, can't bring themselves to do, and/or don't want it to be known they'd paid someone to do. To dead people.

 

Life gets complicated for Jane and her Death Diva business when she's hired to liberate a gaudy mermaid brooch from the corpse during a wake—on behalf of the rightful owner, supposedly. Well, a girl's got to make a living, and this assignment pays better than scattering ashes, placing flowers on graves, or bawling her eyes out as a hired mourner. Unfortunately for Jane, someone else is just as eager to get his hands on that brooch, and he's even sneakier than she is, not to mention dangerously sexy.

 

Just when she thinks her biggest problem is grand theft mermaid, things take a murderous turn. But hey, when you've teamed up with a neurotic seven-pound poodle named Sexy Beast, how can you go wrong?

 

Book 1 in the Jane Delaney mystery series. Approximately 259 pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Radical Poodle Press
• Release date: Aug 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781939215840

Pamela Burford

Pamela Burford comes from a funny family. You may take that any way you want. She was raised in a household that valued laughter above all, so of course the first thing she looked for in a husband was a sense of humor. Is it any wonder their grown kids are into stand-up comedy and improv? It should come as no surprise that everything Pamela writes is infused with her own quirky brand of humor, from her feel-good contemporary romance and romantic suspense novels to her popular Jane Delaney mystery series, featuring snarky “Death Diva” Jane, her canine sidekick Sexy Beast, and a fun love-triangle subplot. Pamela's own beloved poodle, Murray, wants you to know that any similarities between himself and neurotic, high-strung Sexy Beast are purely coincidental. Pamela is the proud founder and past president of Long Island Romance Writers. Her books have won awards and sold millions of copies, but what excites her most is hearing from readers. She’d love it if you could take a few moments to post a review at the online store where you bought this book, and any other sites, such as Goodreads, where you like to share thoughts about books you’ve enjoyed. She’s grateful for the effort happy readers take to spread the word. It helps her and it helps your fellow readers. When you join Pamela’s newsletter, not only will you learn about new releases, freebies, and other fun stuff, but you'll receive a free ebook as her special thank-you. Simply click the Subscribe button on her website or use the "Claim Your Free Ebook!" link in any of her books.

Book preview

1

Frenemies

I KIND OF hated swiping the brooch. It made a real fashion statement for the corpse, who, need I mention, was the best-dressed person at the Leonard T. Ahearn and Sons Funeral Home.

Nobody dresses anymore. Have you noticed? Shorts at the office. Flip-flops in church. In church. Okay, so I’m not what you’d call a churchgoer, aside from the occasional paid-mourner gig, but you get my point. It’s a matter of respect. I mean, if it were your blue-haired granny packed into that satin-lined box, all decked out in a yellow Chanel suit and Hermès scarf, with a manicure to die for, would you show up for the wake in plaid flannel dorm pants and fuzzy slippers?

Fuzzy bedroom slippers, I kid you not, as if locating an actual pair of flip-flops would have taken too much effort for the grieving granddaughter. The girl, who looked around eighteen, sat slumped in the front row between her pimply younger brother and nose-picking boyfriend, playing Rabid Zombie Babysitter on her iPad and whining about missing the latest episode of Bungled Boob & Butt Jobs! because she’d maxed out her DVR for that time slot. Your basic sullen Long Island youth.

I shouldn’t care. Colette O’Rourke wasn’t my blue-haired granny, she was an assignment. Which might come across as pretty cold considering I knew her, but it had been years since our paths had crossed. Thankfully, none of our mutual acquaintances were here at the moment.

How was I dressed? Glad you asked. Conservative gray skirt suit, crisp white blouse, two-inch black pumps. Strawberry-blond hair pulled back in a French twist. Tasteful faux pearls and just enough makeup to keep my pale brows and lashes from doing a vanishing act. It was my standard funeral-home uniform and had served me well, though if I really wanted to blend in with the mourning crowd nowadays, I should probably buy some of those light-up sneakers. Maybe a housedress and hair curlers.

My name is Jane Delaney and I do things my paying customers can’t do, don’t want to do, don’t want to be seen doing, can’t bring themselves to do, and/or don’t want it to be known they’d paid someone to do. To dead people.

No, really, it’s all legal. Well, okay, sometimes there’s a kind of gray area. Like with the brooch. Irene McAuliffe had hired me to salvage her property before it ended up six feet under the lovingly tended sod of Whispering Willows Cemetery. Had I demanded proof of ownership before accepting the assignment? Had I demanded to know why, if the brooch belonged to Irene, it was now pinned to the lifeless bosom of longtime frenemy Colette O’Rourke? No, I had not, but she’d cheerfully filled in the blanks.

Irene was a crusty old buzzard who didn’t take crap from anyone. She was also my steadiest client—my very first client, as a matter of fact, from way back when I was in high school. She’d been putting food on my table and pants on my ass for two decades. Irene had money, along with specific ideas about how she wanted that money spent. Most of those ideas had to do with imparting stern lessons to individuals who, due to the fact they’d stopped breathing air, were less than receptive to such teachable moments.

You know that saying about how revenge is best served cold? Irene believed that revenge was best served to those who were cold. A subtle distinction, I’ll grant you, and one I chose not to dwell on as I crossed myself and rose from the kneeler next to Colette’s casket. I’m not Catholic, but I have the moves down.

The brooch was a cheap bauble, but one with powerful sentimental value. Not that Irene was the sentimental type, aside from the smother-love she lavished on her toy poodle, but she’d known Colette her whole life. They’d grown up in the same grimy apartment house in Bay Ridge and had at one time been closer than sisters. The brooch had been a sweet-sixteen gift from Irene to Colette and had cost all of $4.39 back then.

When you have no money, you remember the cost of things. Irene’s words. She’d saved up nickels and dimes from baby-sitting for weeks to buy that brooch.

Why, you might ask, if their lifelong friendship meant so much to Irene, had she boycotted Colette’s wake? Their relationship, always volatile, had been on a downward trajectory for the past decade or so, the result of an infamous row over the minimum bet in the weekly poker game Irene hosted.

And then there was the brooch itself. Ages ago, Colette had specified in her will that she was to be buried with it. Irene, the repository of an inexhaustible supply of obscure and suspiciously convenient Unwritten Rules, had insisted that Colette, the Recipient of the Gift, was morally bound to offer the trinket to Irene, the Giver of the Gift, if the alternative was Burial of the Gift.

Colette had greeted this pronouncement with her signature dry cackle and single-digit salute. It was on to Plan B: What better nyah-nyah than for Irene to snatch the thing from her erstwhile BFF when said BFF was in no position to do a damn thing about it?

Irene was big on getting the last word.

I know you’re wondering what this brooch looked like. It was made of some kind of white base metal, two to three inches long and in the shape of a mermaid holding a mirror and running a comb through her hair. The entire piece was heavily encrusted with fake gemstones of various shapes and sizes. The lines of the mermaid’s body were graceful and feminine, from her flowing red hair to the sweeping fan of her tail. The fishy lower parts were done in dark blue and green stones, the human upper half in cubic zirconia or whatever stood in for diamonds back then. Rhinestones probably. The perky breasts were bare and tipped with tiny red nipples—no clamshell bra for this brazen mermaid. Daring stuff for that era, but then, I get the sense that Irene and her friend were not exactly the shy, bookish type.

There was something just plain wrong about the sight of that sexpot mermaid in such close proximity to the rosary beads clutched in Colette’s cold fingers. Still, I was impressed by the artistry and workmanship of the piece, despite its being worth approximately what Irene had paid for it in her youth. By contrast, she was shelling out three hundred clams, pun intended, for me to snatch the thing from under the very noses of Colette’s clueless kinfolk.

The wake was scheduled for seven to nine p.m. My arrival had been timed for the final few minutes when the last visitors would be saying their good-byes and the family would be too tired and distracted to notice me liberating the brooch one-handed and slipping it into my jacket pocket as I executed a slow turn away from the casket. Plus, there’d be scant time afterward for anyone to notice something was missing. I’d practiced the moves at home and had them down. All I needed was a few seconds of alone time with the stiff.

Behind me a trio of Colette’s gal pals converged on the occupants of the front row. The eyes in the back of my head saw the old ladies bending over Colette’s son and daughter-in-law, squeezing their hands and filling their field of vision in a most fortuitous way. Lenny Ahearn did such a nice job, she looks so natural, they murmured, and What a shock, I ran into her just before Easter at Whole Foods, and Will you be putting the house on the market? I might know someone. What they were no doubt dying to say but didn’t have the nerve was, What in the world possessed you to pin that vulgar brooch to a genuine Hermès scarf?

Meanwhile Fuzzy Slippers and her brother squabbled like rabid wolverines over the iPad. It’s mine, she hissed, jerking it out of the boy’s grasp. I bought it with my own money. She called him a filthy name and he responded in kind.

It was show time.

I commenced my well-rehearsed sleight of hand, angling my body to conceal my fingers as they darted over the side of the—

Feet shuffled on the carpet directly behind me. I jerked my hand back and turned to see a good-looking, fortyish man waiting to pay his respects to Colette. The man had sandy hair cropped so close it was practically shaved. He wore a black shirt and black pants. And a white clerical collar.

Can you sprain your eyeballs? Because I swear, when mine zeroed in on that collar, they practically dislocated.

A priest. I’d almost been busted by a priest.

My heart attempted to sledgehammer its way out of my ribcage as I wondered giddily which particular circle of hell was reserved for those caught stealing from the dead by a man of the cloth.

Please. The padre gestured toward the guest of honor and took a half step back. Take your time. I can wait. The words were indulgent, the body language reassuring. So why did it feel as though that unsmiling blue gaze was boring into my skull, rummaging through my brain, and reading my guilty, guilty thoughts?

Oh...that’s okay. I scooted away from the casket. You, um, go ahead. I’ll just, you know...

He dipped his head in thanks and approached the casket.

I sank into the chair next to Colette’s son and dragged in a deep, steadying breath, nearly gagging on the cloying scent of the floral arrangements. The three old ladies bestowed final cheek-pecks and shuffled toward the exit. Well, that particular window of opportunity had officially slammed shut. I sneaked a peek at my watch. I had a couple of minutes left. I would do this thing. I had to. The funeral was tomorrow morning. It was either swipe that brooch here and now or invest in a shovel and flashlight. I’d never failed a client, and I wasn’t about to start now.

Plus, if I had to fail a client, it sure as heck wasn’t going to be Irene McAuliffe, who’d recently become even more irritable and demanding than usual. True, we had a long history. She was the grandma I never had—though I’d be willing to bet my real grandmas never planted stinkweed on a grave or mixed an unloved one’s ashes into a bag of kitty litter. For twenty-two years I’d managed to keep out of Irene’s crosshairs. Return to her empty-handed? I had a better idea. I’d change my name and move to Rangoon. Less trauma in the long run.

Also, I could really use the three hundred bucks.

As the priest knelt and prayed, Colette’s son turned to me. He was lean and rangy, wearing a dandruff-specked corduroy sport coat and loosened tie. He looked older than the sixty or so years I knew him to be. Thanks for coming. Patrick O’Rourke.

The hand I shook felt rough as bark. I’d never met Patrick before, but I’d heard whispers around town, none of them flattering. Terms such as troubled and misfit and loser had followed the guy since adolescence.

He tried to introduce me to his wife, Barbara, a well-nourished bottle blonde encased in a bedazzled stretch-denim ensemble, but she was making her own grab for the iPad and yelling at their kids to shut the hell up and show some respect. So did you know my mom? Patrick asked me.

You might think this is where it got awkward, but in fact, I could do this part in my sleep. Not as well as I would have liked, I said. I’m Mary Filcher. I just recently started working at the senior center here in Crystal Harbor. One thing about Colette, she could always drum up a poker game.

That produced a half smile. She was one hell of a player. Never rubbed off on me. I couldn’t manage a poker face to save my life.

I always come armed with a factoid or two about the dearly departed. Also, I routinely leave my purse in the car so if I find myself in a tight spot, I can pretend to be an employee of the funeral home. The suit-and-pearls uniform helps to pull that one off, besides being just plain good manners. This evening, though, since I’d been observed in civilian mode actually visiting with the corpse, that particular ploy wasn’t an option.

Okay, let’s get something out of the way so we won’t have to deal with it again. I can hear you thinking, Oh, that Jane Delaney, how does she live with herself? Pretending to be something she’s not. For money. Taking advantage of grieving families. For money. Stealing from dead people. For three hundred bucks cash money.

Well, I think I explained that last thing. It wasn’t really stealing—the brooch belonged to Irene. Kind of. And anyway, this particular job wasn’t what you’d call typical, even for Irene. My usual assignments involve activities as benign as placing flowers on graves or scattering ashes at sea. Plus that thing I mentioned before, being a paid mourner, which I’ll have you know is a career with a long and distinguished... well, a long history, so don’t turn up your nose.

Okay, I’ll admit there have been a few assignments over the years that might be described as offbeat, the current one being a splendid example. And for the record, I had nothing to do with the kitty-litter episode. That was before my time.

The bottom line is, I help my clients deal with their grief and loss, and I have a strict moral code regarding what kinds of jobs I’ll accept. You think swiping jewelry is bad? You should see what I’ve turned down. Once word gets around that there’s this person called the Death Diva—no, I did not choose the nickname!—willing to perform all manner of chores for grieving folk, at reasonable rates and with the utmost discretion, well, you’re going to get the occasional kook slithering out of the woodwork. There’s a reason morgues are locked up at night.

I watched the priest as he rose from the kneeler. Bless me, Father, for I have noticed what a fine, firm butt you have. You want to know why I don’t go to church? How could I pray to a God who lets a swell-looking man like that go to waste? And I don’t even care if he’s gay. Someone should have the pleasure.

Patrick yammered on about Colette’s fatal stroke, the EMTs and emergency room, all the gooey details family members seem compelled to share and that no one wants to hear. Meanwhile I kept one eye on the casket, hoping I didn’t look as impatient as I felt. I heard a low, Latinate drone as the priest prayed for Colette’s irascible soul. I saw his arm move as he blessed her with the sign of the cross.

I assumed that meant he was wrapping things up. Sure enough, within moments he was strolling toward the exit.

Show time, take two. I stood and smoothed my skirt. I’m just going to say good-bye to your mom one last time.

We going to see you tomorrow? Patrick asked. At the funeral?

I wish I could, but I have work in the morning. I’m so glad I got to meet you.

All right, so sometimes I do feel like a heel. Are you happy?

It’s nine, Fuzzy Slippers informed her parents as I stepped up to the casket. Let’s go. Her brother announced that he had stuff to do. From behind me I heard Barbara ordering them, in hushed tones, to park their butts and wait until the last visitor—that would be me—was finished.

I welcomed the bickering. Something to occupy the family while I accomplished my dark deed.

My fingers began to slink into the casket, then froze. I stood paralyzed for an endless moment, staring at Colette’s scarf, specifically at the spot on the scarf where a cheap mermaid brooch should have been pinned—the spot where it had been pinned less than two minutes earlier. Abandoning any semblance of stealth, I yanked at the scarf, peered under and around it.

Colette’s meticulously lipsticked mouth was curved in a taunting little Mona Lisa smile that I swear was new.

Behind me the boyfriend drawled, Is that lady supposed to be, like, doing that to your grand—

Son of a bitch! I took off running after the priest.

The pencil skirt and heels slowed me as I raced for the main entrance. I yanked open the heavy door and nearly took a header on the building’s rain-slick marble steps. Through the gloom and early-spring shower I spied, in a far corner of the parking lot, a dark figure mounting a motorcycle. I turned on the juice and ran straight for him.

Hey! I cried. Wait!

He seemed in no hurry, giving me hope that I could catch up to him. In the instant before his helmet settled into place, I saw clearly that it was indeed the priest, now wearing a black motorcycle jacket. With maddening calm he observed my awkward dash through the lot.

I need to talk to—! I tripped on a fast-food cup and went down with a screech. Pain exploded in my knee. He was still a good twenty yards away. Stop! I bellowed, on all fours now, struggling to rise. Give me that damn brooch!

The priest started the motorcycle, executed a lazy turn out of the lot, and disappeared down the street.

2

Heads Will Roll

IT WAS A quarter past nine when I reached Irene’s place, located in the snootiest neighborhood of the snootiest town in the snootiest part of Long Island’s North Shore. I was twitchy as a gerbil on crack, expecting the cell phone in my pocket to ring at any moment—my impatient client on the other end, exhibiting her usual gracious reserve. What, did you stop to pawn the damn thing? Get your ass over here, pronto. I want my brooch! I mentally rehearsed how I was going to break it to her.

The funniest thing, Irene. A priest beat me to the brooch, can you believe it? Is that just too weird or what? In my imagination Irene laughed and laughed. We laughed together, the two of us. Then she insisted on paying me the three hundred bucks anyway because I’d tried and isn’t that what really mattered?

I didn’t bother jumping in my car to chase down the sticky-fingered priest. What would be the point? In the laughably unlikely event my geriatric Civic caught up with his Harley, I would do what precisely? Sideswipe him? Run him off the road? Club him with a tire iron and ransack his pockets for a hunk of tin worth less than a Caramel Frappuccino?

Okay and yes, I’d managed to deduce that the cute priest was as faux as my pearls. In lieu of a fruitless car chase, I’d hobbled back into Ahearn’s on my banged-up knee and quizzed Colette’s family about the guy. They’d never seen him before, and once Patrick had recovered from the shock of the bizarre theft, he informed me he had no interest in reporting it to the authorities. The brooch had no monetary value. He hadn’t a clue why his mother had wanted to spend eternity with the gaudy thing, much less why some crackpot had gone to the bother of snatching it—unless the thief was under the misguided impression it was worth something. Patrick had no intention of putting his family through a tangle of police red tape at a time like that.

I’d tried to change his mind. I wasn’t thrilled either about the idea of getting the cops involved, but face it, they were the ones with the resources. How was I supposed to track down the pilfering padre and get a second chance to swipe the brooch myself without the assistance of Crystal Harbor’s finest?

And yeah, I know how that sounds and I don’t care.

I resisted the temptation to drive at a snail’s pace and delay the inevitable confrontation. All it would take was a meandering half-hour motor tour past Crystal Harbor’s swankier gated communities in my eleven-year-old beater and I’d be the one answering to the police—though if I had to choose between them and Irene in her current belligerent mood, I might be tempted to take a swing at a cop just to spend the night in the relative safety of a holding cell.

I turned onto the curving, tree-lined drive leading to Irene’s brick-and-stone mini-mansion, set well away from its nearest neighbors on five exquisitely landscaped acres. The covered portico was flanked by white double columns. Elegant Palladian windows adorned the three peaked roofs. Every window in the place glowed, top to bottom, and not because she was expecting company. Irene liked to make her house look like a spread in Architectural Digest. She thought a low carbon footprint was something you made your housekeeper scrub off your $150-per-square-foot macassar ebony floors.

While we’re on the subject of housekeepers, it was Maria’s day off, so she wasn’t there to answer the doorbell, a chore Irene herself would perform only after an exhaustive hair and makeup inspection. Since the April rain had turned into a serious downpour, I braked in the circular cobblestone courtyard and hauled out the keys Irene had given me two decades earlier when she’d hired me as an after-school dog-sitter.

She prided herself on being able to size up people at first glance, and she must have seen something honest and dependable in my sixteen-year-old self. A few months later when her beloved toy poodle Dr. Strangelove sprinted out of the house and under the wheels of her gardener’s truck—no, not while I was watching him!—she began paying me to deliver a weekly bouquet to Best Friend Pet Cemetery. Irene was too busy to do it herself, and anyway, wasn’t it the thought that counted?

I still dog-sat a couple of times a week, and I still drove to the pet cemetery every Sunday, only now I brought three bouquets, the other two being for Annie Hall, a sweet-tempered white poodle who’d died of natural causes at fourteen, and Jaws, a plump gray poodle who’d succumbed to a tough wad of prime rib three years ago. And before you ask whether Irene ever paid me to deliver flowers to her husband Arthur’s grave, the answer is no. He’d been cremated. So there. Irene is the reason I do what I do. She helped me build my business through referrals, and I’m indebted to her.

I didn’t call out to announce my presence. Irene considered raised voices inside the house to be vulgar—unless the raised voice emanated from Irene herself, but of course in those cases there was always a perfectly legitimate reason. I was kind of surprised she hadn’t met me at the door, considering how determined she was to get her hands on that stupid brooch. I was just as happy to put off the confrontation for another few minutes while I collected myself.

I deposited my shoulder bag on the console table in the foyer, kicked off my shoes, and bent to examine my throbbing knee. It was beginning to swell and discolor, not to mention the layer of skin I’d left in Ahearn’s parking lot. I heard the scrabble of nails on ebony as Sexy Beast—SB for short—came running from the direction of the kitchen.

The shaggy apricot poodle barked up a storm, his tiny body charging straight toward me. It wasn’t his usual welcome. SB is the most submissive dog I’ve ever known. His usual routine is to grovel and scrape his way toward me, head bowed, tail firmly tucked under, his little legs splayed so far he barely has purchase on the slick floor. You’d think he’s beaten on a daily basis instead of being coddled like a canine pasha.

There’s my good boy, come to Jane for scritches. I bent to bestow the customary scratches behind his ears and love pats along his little body, but to my surprise, he did a one-eighty and dashed back toward the kitchen.

You’ll get your treat after I pull myself together. I had more urgent business at the moment. I pushed strands of sodden hair behind my ears as I limped across the foyer, past the curving staircase on my right to the powder room tucked beneath it. There I assessed the damage, gulping down a couple of Advil and wiping at my mascara-smeared zombie eyes.

SB followed at my heels, barking nonstop, tail lifted straight up as if he were top dog in these parts. Which he was, but until that moment, he’d never gotten the memo. You’re not turning alpha on me, are you? Next he’d be lifting his leg on the custom-made sideboard.

He started for the kitchen again but didn’t get far. I grabbed him up in a football hold and carried him there myself. Enough already. I’ll give you your treat, then you have to leave me alone. I half expected to see Irene in there, scooping ice into a cocktail shaker for her evening martini. Two drops of vermouth—not an atom more!—with an olive. She wasn’t in the breakfast room on the other side of the big granite kitchen island either.

I opened the fridge and rearranged the contents like puzzle pieces, searching. Finally at the back of the top shelf I spied the little jar of Vienna sausages Irene bought just for her pampered pet. Sexy Beast was picky in the extreme. He had little use for lowly doggie treats, preferring to save his appetite for salty, cholesterol-laden human snack foods. I’d never seen SB turn down a Vienna sausage, but that’s what he did then, wriggling in my hold and whining to be set down.

I tightened my grip on him and peered into his dark little eyes. You’re not getting sick, are you, boy? If he kept acting strange, I’d have to take him to the vet in the morning. Irene never took him herself. She couldn’t bear to see her precious SB in distress, and you show me a dog that does Snoopy’s happy dance when you pull up to the vet’s.

Or to the groomer’s in the case of Sexy Beast, an aversion Irene indulged by, well, not having him groomed. She refused to listen to reason on this point. As a result, the dog’s curly, peach-colored hair hung in long, unkempt mats. The hair on his head had grown so long it draped his eyes. I had no idea how he saw through that mess.

As if the matted coat weren’t enough, one of his long fangs protruded beyond his lips when he smiled. Yes, he did so smile! He wasn’t a show-quality dog by any stretch of the imagination, but Irene never applied conventional standards of perfection when selecting a puppy. She judged a prospective pet solely on personality, which I always felt said something positive about her.

Once in a great while I’d screw up my courage to trim Sexy Beast’s

Reviews for Undertaking Irene

[jetangen4571 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

situational-humor, verbal-humor, murder Great fun with a creative protagonist, nearly constant laughs, and a far out plot!

[cissa_5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This mystery was a delight!The plot is very twisty indeed! and that's just how I like them.While it was a bit challenging to keep the various family trees straight- and that's important!- it was manageable.All the characters are complex and come across as real people, even fairly minor ones. The dog is a dog, and acts like a dog- both messing things up and helping the humans, according to his own canine logic.Add in some good dialog, and a convincing sense of place, and it all makes for a very entertaining mystery that is full of surprises!Recommended for mystery fans! It is at the writing available for free in Kindle form on Amazon.I look forward to the next in this series!

[rhonda1111 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

4 STARS Jane Delaney has a very interesting job. She does things for or too people that have died. Right now her job is to steal a pin the deceased plans to be buried with. But someone beat her to it. It has some funny moments in this book, and some very serious moments too. Jane finds her friend dead. She does not believe it was a natural death so she convinces someone to look into it. She ends up being a suspect. Their are a few suspects that have motive. It keeps you guessing till it reveals who. cute dogs in this story. Interesting characters, Interesting romances, Looks like it could be a good series to follow and also a clean read. My attention was kept in the story. I hated to put it down. Jane still likes her ex-husband that he is getting ready for his 4th wedding. She also likes a mystery priest. Jane does not have much money compared to those around her do. She really likes her employers dog sexy beast. Jane cares about those around her. Jonah is a man of mystery that I really want to know more about him and where he got his skills. Sexy Beast is a poodle with a real matted hair. I think my daughter's dog needs his hair cut too. Sexy beast is seven pounds. He is spoiled dog. I will be looking to read other books by Pamela Burford in the future. I was given this ebook to read and agreed to give honest review of it and be part of Undertaking Irene's blog tour.